Electronic apparatuses such as cameras that identify electronic apparatus users and engage in a specific operation corresponding to a given user are known in the related art. For instance, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H 11-164282 discloses a digital camera having a card read unit, which allows a user to enter personal information to the digital camera through the card reader unit, automatically connects with a data server corresponding to the user based upon the entered personal information and automatically transfers image data obtained through a photographing operation performed with the digital camera to the data server.
The electronic apparatus in the related art described above requires a magnetic card or a memory card having stored therein the personal information to be directly loaded at the electronic apparatus or necessitates a wired connection of the magnetic card or the memory card to the electronic apparatus so that the personal information can be read into the electronic apparatus.
However, having to directly load a magnetic card or a memory card at the electronic apparatus or connect the magnetic card or the memory card to the electronic apparatus, by means of wiring, each time the user needs to use the electronic apparatus places a considerable onus on the user and, moreover, there is a problem in that the electronic apparatus cannot be used immediately in a situation that arises suddenly. For instance, there is a risk of missing a good photo opportunity while setting the personal information in the digital camera.
In addition, in the electronic apparatus in the related art described above, the personal information is utilized for limited purposes such as the automatic selection of the recipient to which images are to be transmitted and setting and display operations are performed in the electronic apparatus without fully reflecting the personal information. As a result, the user may not always be satisfied with the ease of operation it affords. The design of the electronic apparatus is particularly lax in consideration of users such as first-time users, seniors and children, who may not be accustomed to operating electronic apparatuses.
People also store image data obtained through a photographing operation performed with an electronic camera on a trip or the like into a memory card and later review images reproduced from the image data displayed at a liquid crystal display screen of the electronic camera in which the memory card is loaded or at a screen of a personal computer to which the image data have been transferred from the memory card.
The user reviewing electronic image data in the related art as described above is simply allowed to view the reproduced images on display, and there is difficulty in expanding the range of information utilization beyond reviewing of the images.
For instance, if the user becomes interested in a historical structure or the like photographed in the image he is currently reviewing, he has to stop reviewing images temporarily to look it up in an encyclopedia or to conduct a search on the Internet. In addition, if the user becomes interested in a person (the person's name, hobby, etc.) photographed in the image he is reviewing, the user cannot obtain that person's personal information immediately on the spot.
In addition, image data obtained through a photographing operation of an electronic camera are transferred to another image display terminal for reviewing the image data through an off-line information transmission method, in which the image data are temporarily saved into a memory card and then the memory card is loaded at the other image display terminal or through an on-line information transmission method, in which the image data are transmitted through a wireless or wired communication from the electronic camera to the other image display terminal, in the related art. For instance, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H 10-341388 discloses an image transmission system which enables a direct transmission of image data from an electronic camera to another electronic camera through optical communication achieved by using infrared light.
There are disadvantages to the off-line image transmission system and the off-line image transmission method in the related art described above in that since they necessitate an exchange of an information storage medium such as a memory card between the electronic camera and the image display terminal, the storage medium must be frequently loaded and unloaded, and data cannot be obtained and recorded through a photographing operation in the meantime, and in that since the recording medium must be physically transported, there is a time lag before the data can be utilized on the recipient side.
While the need to transport the information recording medium is eliminated by adopting the on-line transmission system and the on-line image transmission method in the related art described above, there is a problem in that data cannot be obtained and recorded through a photographing operation or the like while communication is in progress at a low transmission speed. In particular, the length of time required to transmit image data the volume of which is much larger than that of standard text data or the like tends to be very significant. Furthermore, when image data of a group picture of a number of people taken with an electronic camera are directly transmitted by the electronic camera to portable telephones or the like of the plurality of subjects, the image data transmission takes a great deal of time.